Valentine's Surprise
by Wordsplat
Summary: Steve gets an interesting surprise on Valentine's Day. Fluffy little drabble, TonyxSteve


At first, it was cute.

A bit confusing, perhaps, but cute.

_Are you google? Because you have everything I'm searching for._

Steve wasn't entirely sure how the valentine had gotten on his bed, since he'd been in the shower less than ten minutes, and he was sure his door was locked, but he smiled regardless.

The card was homemade, red and pink card paper, with a picture of the google logo on the front and the words typed and glued to the inside. It wasn't signed, but it was obviously from one of his younger fans, all cut and pasted together. Someone must have already gone through the mail and put it on his bed, then. Steve went to tuck it into his side drawer when he spotted the second one.

It was propped up by the door, this one blue with a picture of Nemo on the front, which only served to make Steve more curious. He'd only just seen Finding Nemo two nights ago, and the only people who'd know that were the ones there, people like-

Steve felt his heart skip a beat before he caught himself.

It wasn't Tony. He knew it wasn't, and pretending otherwise would only disappoint. Steve shook his head to clear his thoughts and think about this rationally.

Tony was straight; he'd brought enough women to the Tower in those first few months after Pepper and he broke up to make all of New York well aware of it. Tony was out. Thor and Jane were steadfastly in love with each other, and were spending the "holiday of love" together, so they were both clearly out as well. Clint and Natasha weren't open with their relationship, but it was blindingly obvious to those that lived and worked with them, so they too were out of the picture. Bruce was still in love with his high school girlfriend, and they had shared their losses of Betty and Peggy, respectively, enough times for Steve to feel comfortable ruling the doctor out as well.

That left Pepper and Darcy.

Darcy had always been quite interested in feeling him up every chance she got, but Jane seemed quick to dismiss her behavior as "Darcy being Darcy". Darcy herself claimed it was because she would consider herself a "failure as a hot-blooded woman" if she didn't. Steve had never dwelled on it much, but he supposed it was possible.

Pepper, on the other hand…well, it was possible, but awkward on a number of levels. They'd grown to be friends in the past few months, though not in any direct sort of way. After Pepper left Tony, he'd spiraled, and it had been Steve who'd picked up the pieces. Pepper and Steve had begun to talk, short phone calls and a couple of emails, mainly over Tony's well-being. She'd helped him manage Tony's drunken episodes and attempts to push him away, he'd helped her have the space from Tony she needed while still knowing he was being looked after. They talked often, true, but rarely about anything unrelated to Tony.

Tony and Pepper reformed their friendship of course, and were thicker than thieves again, but Steve and Pepper had continued to talk. At first it was a bit out obligation, but Steve had come to enjoy their chats-she helped him understand Tony better, and he was grateful for that.

But.

Not quite _love _grateful.

She couldn't really…?

Steve approached the second valentine cautiously, one hand still keeping his towel up.

_This valentine's day, I know what butt I want to touch._

Steve flushed and quickly closed the card, as if someone might read it over his shoulder. He tucked it away in his drawer with the other one, going to get changed and thinking of the valentine's puzzle all the while.

Pepper wasn't usually quite so…blunt. She certainly had a sense of humor, and it could occasionally be much dirtier than he'd ever have expected from a lady-one didn't work under Tony Stark for a decade without it-but this seemed a bit more…abrupt than her usual style. Perhaps it was Darcy after all? She _was_ always leering at him.

He toweled off his hair as he stepped into the hallway, intending to go down for breakfast, and nearly groaned out loud.

There was another one, sitting innocently outside his door.

_Are you a magician? Because Abracadayum you're fine._

This one was purple, and had a winking magician on the front. Steve was about to turn around and put it in his room, when he spotted another. This time, he couldn't resist the groan. This one was green, and the front had a picture of an old lady on the ground. Confused and somewhat wary, Steve opened the card.

_Help! I've fallen for you and I can't get up._

Steve remained confused for a good long minute, before he remembered the commercial Tony had insisted he watch some months ago. Tony had spent weeks afterwards trying to get him to wear a LifeAlert necklace, and when that had failed, he tried to get Steve a job as the spokesperson declaring that all senior citizens should have LifeAlert.

Steve smiled at the old joke, then paused to wonder. Could that mean…? No, surely plenty of people had seen that commercial.

_Keep it together, Rogers, _Steve thought to himself.

He pressed the button for the elevator, and when the doors opened with a ding, a bright orange valentine awaited him, a picture of Dracula on the front. Steve flipped it open idly.

_Are you a vampire? Because you should suck me._

Steve startled, snapping the card closed instantly. This was getting ridiculous. He pressed the button for the shared floor with a bit more force than necessary; he needed to eat something if he was going to deal with this. When the doors dinged open, there was one sitting in wait for him, this one yellow with some typed words and a picture of a rose on the front.

_Roses are red, but sometimes they're thorny. When you're around, I get pretty..._

Oh God, not on the communal floor. If the others caught sight of this, he would never live it down…

…_corny. I know what you were thinking. Shame on you, Spangles ;)_

Steve sighed, flicking the card closed with a huff. Who could blame him for thinking something else after the last one? Come to think of that last one…

Belatedly, a certain anatomical fact occurred to Steve.

For there to be…_sucking _involved, his valentine would have to be male. Therefore, not Darcy or Pepper. Therefore…

Steve tried to put it out of his mind for the moment, at least until he could get some food in him. His metabolism required an insane amount of food, and until he ate breakfast he could at least blame his silly hope on lack of proper nutritio-

_Oh God._

The kitchen was a disaster zone, plates and bowls and ingredients everywhere. There was a stack of burnt pancakes on the counter and a couple on the floor, a heaping bowl of scrambled eggs that was dangerously close to falling off the edge, and the toaster happened to be on fire.

Tony was in the middle of it all, trying to flip a pancake and put out the toaster-fire at the same time.

"Uh," was about the only sound Steve could manage at the moment.

"Shit!" Tony swore, dropping the spatula to spin around and stare at Steve, "Why are you out of the shower already?"

"I shower fast?" Steve blinked at his surroundings, "Tony, what on Eart-"

"No, no, the table, look at the table," Tony pushed him in the right direction, talking a mile a minute, "I was going to surround it with, like, food and stuff cause your metabolism is freaky and you eat like a starving caveman after your runs and maybe if you saw food you might be more inclined to say yes, plus, Pepper said providing food for someone is, like, romantic or something, fuck, I don't know, just read the table already-"

"Tony, is that syrup?"

"What? Yeah, it's syrup-"

"Why is there syrup on the table?"

"Did you read what it-"

"Did you _write on the table with syrup, _why would_-"_

"Okay, yes, in hindsight it's stupid, but-"

"That's going to stain-"

"Steve, for fuck's sake, I will buy another table, would you just read the syrup?"

_Roses are red, violets are blue, this is me, trying to court you_

"Tony," and okay, his voice was a little bit strangled as he held up the cards he'd collected on his way down, "These were all…_you?"_

"Who'd you think it was?" Tony sounded somewhat put out.

"Not…" Steve flushed, "I don't know, I didn't want to assume."

"Okay, well, an answer or something would be kind of nice because, I mean, don't get me wrong, you being bashful is all kinds of adorable, but I don't know if this is a yes-bashful or a no-bashful and I paid all the others to be gone all day so I'm going to be honest, if you say-"

"Yes."

"-no tomorrow's going to be all kinds of awk-wait," Tony quirked his head, looking incredibly confused, "Yes?"

"Yes."

"_Yes, _yes?"

"Is there another kind of yes?"

"Well, no, I just didn't think you'd actually-"

Steve leaned in, grabbed Tony's wildly gesticulating hands, and effectively shut him up.


End file.
